Latest / Clinically Chaotic / Episode 8: What It’s Like To Be A Mental Health Provider With ADHD

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Episode 8: What It’s Like To Be A Mental Health Provider With ADHD · Clinically Chaotic

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Clinically Chaotic with Erica and Tara.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be here.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for waking up at the ass crack of dawn before work with me.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I am always really excited about October, but specifically, I feel like what everybody's been talking about and what's always at the forefront of our work is the concept of working with clients who have ADHD.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that we worked regularly together on when we worked in residential.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I imagine now spills into your work quite a bit, correct?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a part of my everyday work life and my everyday personal life.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's the piece that people don't talk about when they talk about ADHD and providers.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's always the service that we're providing to others, which yes is important, but I don't really hear a lot of people talk about what it's like to be a provider who has ADHD and kind of what that struggle looks like over time.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know we were talking about this briefly, but I was hoping today that you would kind of share your story of when you got diagnosed, what kind of led up to that, and kind of your experience previous to your whole diagnosis.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I was officially diagnosed with ADHD right after I finished my undergrad.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I was about 22 years old.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: I had just moved into the city, started working at my first job out of college.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that throughout my childhood, I definitely noticed my anxiety that was present.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: At some point, I became a little fixated or hyper-focused on my anxiety.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I was um doing my undergrad that I had really seemed to struggle with my academics in the school setting throughout my whole life.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I always hinned my struggle on my anxiety.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: I always attributed it to my anxiety that I would struggle with my academics or not being able to pay attention or feeling really distracted in class because I wasn't nervous to be there.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't feel grounded or settled.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So going through my undergrad and having a really hard time getting through my undergrad, it was right towards the end of that kind of time in my life that I started to think, okay, maybe something more is going on than my anxiety.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think I also at that time just had more general knowledge on some of the symptoms of ADHD, and obviously it all matched.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did go get formally tested by a psychiatrist in Seattle.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: He ran all these tests and eventually offered me a variety of medications to use for my ADHD.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that's so interesting, just because statistically speaking, women are significantly less likely to get diagnosed than men are, because it does present in women typically as inattentive versus hyperactive.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious when you look at your symptoms, did you feel like you lined up more with the hyperactive side or more with the inattentive side?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me it was more the inattentive side, but again, there are days where sometimes I feel like I align more with the hyperactivity side rather than the inattentive side.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like I have sprinkles of both in some ways.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: That must have been really hard to navigate as a small child, not necessarily obvious to the adults around you, teachers who had less education back then.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to really spot a child who's just daydreaming a lot, especially if they're not failing classes.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just in the middle of the pack, I imagine that you kind of just get pushed through to the next grade, regardless.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was exactly my experience.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was at some point became really skilled at kind of flying under the radar, but still doing exactly what I needed to do in order to just get by and pass the classes I was taking and kind of complete the courses that I was engaged in.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it was always a constant struggle.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: When I was a child, that just kind of became the norm for me.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas when I became an adult and then started working in the mental health field and learning more and more about mental health diagnoses, it just all kind of fell into place where suddenly I had more knowledge, I had more options of how to manage it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it kind of just became in my adult life something that I could address and see more clearly.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas when you're a child, obviously that's just not the case.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, that really changes everything.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think everybody thinks as a provider, you should be able to know what's going on for yourself.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: The reality for a lot of us is that we can't diagnose ourselves.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes taking a step back and looking at yourself objectively and separating those feelings is really hard.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is a strong need for other people, educators, school counselors, parents to have education around what kind of these diagnoses can look like and how to really enable kids, teenagers, even young adults to take a second to think about it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have never been formally diagnosed.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I oh have always gravitated towards friends who have diagnosed ADHD, partners who have it as well.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I always just felt like we thought the same or had a similar energy level.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: They got me.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And never in my professional life until about a year ago did it occur that maybe we get each other because we're living a similar experience.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was in Mexico over New Year's.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You remember that on a girls' trip.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was with some of the most brilliant women I've ever been around, everybody working kind of in the mental health field in a different capacity.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this one woman is a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: She looks at me and it was like, Wow, how long have you dealt with your ADHD?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't know what you mean by that.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Oh, are you not formally diagnosed?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, No, I've never even considered myself to be in that category.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Oh, maybe you might want to look into that one day.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't followed up since because I looked into it briefly.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And testing is crazy expensive.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Also, women are less likely to be diagnosed later in life, which I found interesting.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And because a lot of those symptoms are not hyperactive, although I would argue some of my symptoms are, there's a large chance, and I've sat with clients in rooms who've reported this as well, that you go in and you talk to a provider and they discount your experience entirely, especially with a medication shortage that providers are just not diagnosing because of the medication situation.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is that something you've had to deal with over time?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I will say the first provider that I ever went to for my ADHD, I remember him clearly.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was only 22 years old, so it wasn't that long ago.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it all felt very black and white.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I sat down, I explained some of the symptoms and kind of reasons why I believed that I had ADHD.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: He had me take standardized computer tests where I was having to pay attention to different colors and remember the different colors.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as this test came back, based on the scores of my test, I fit into the category of being eligible for a diagnosis.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like there was no further conversation or exploring past years of my life or historical events or experiences I had in school.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I genuinely remember sitting down and saying, you know, I'm currently working my first job out of um undergrad and I'm tired of feeling like I have a lack of motivation.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm tired of feeling like I have nine million thoughts in my head that I can't really concentrate on one thing at a time.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: I gave him the short laundry list of symptoms that I had been experiencing that I thought bit the mold.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um at the end of the appointment, he said, Yeah, you know, I'm sorry that you've been dealing with this for so long without any type of tools to manage it.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the tool that he was providing was medication.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: But alongside that, I do remember him encouraging me to start working with mental health therapists more consistently and utilizing the meds alongside treatment, which I think is what a lot of people miss when they are discovering that they have ADHD and then they're getting offered medications or gonna start trying different medications to support their ADHD.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: That really works.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: My understanding is that method really works best when you are also seeing a mental health therapist and reviewing how the meds are making you feel, but then how you can use other therapeutic tools to support your ADHD without having to rely on the medication.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think to what you said, a piece that is consistently missed is that it's not just struggling to sit down and be at work or be in a classroom.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes we're looking at dysregulated emotions, particularly in kids, but also in adults, when you think about how fast your brain is firing, it makes sense that you oftentimes are in overdrive in comparison to your peers around you.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And to even have that balance of somebody to help manage that side that oftentimes is just dismissed or overlooked.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And people with ADHD are branded as too sensitive or they just need to figure that out instead of really acknowledging that this is kind of just a piece of having a brand that works in this way.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Over time, I've seen different providers to support my ADHD, but currently I have a female provider who has taught me a lot.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've been seeing her for about two years.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in the two years that I've been working with her, she has taught me a lot about ADHD and how it interacts with women specifically, um, how it interacts with our hormones and when our cycle comes throughout the month.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she has really given me a lot of knowledge and insight about it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas when I was 22 and first getting diagnosed, I was being given information of different medications or different support options.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas now, and maybe it's because I'm a little old older, I have a little more knowledge in general about my ADHD and mental health as a whole.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: But she's really taken the time to send articles, provide me with psychoeducation and different forms of knowledge around my ADHD and how it is affecting me as I get older and my body continues to develop as a woman and my hormones change.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: That has also been an empowering piece of continuing to learn more about what is actually happening internally.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: When I was a child and experiencing these things, obviously it's just like confusion that you kind of sit in.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: You don't really understand what's happening.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the perk of being an adult in these situations is now you feel almost a sense of power getting to understand what really is going on.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I wish there were more providers who really did sit down and explain all these things and walk step by step.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know that we had talked about this previously, and I can't remember if it was in a previous episode or just a conversation we had on the side that you had mentioned co-occurring disorders, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: The interaction between anxiety and ADHD.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say, in my role, something I've seen over time specifically is people utilizing medication management and prescribers wanting to manage the anxiety first and kind of wait to manage the ADHD, but that rarely, in my case, working with clients, has that ever seemed to actually make anything better for them.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Treating the anxiety first instead of the ADHD seems to not really work for a majority of people.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: I completely agree with that.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I lost my train of thought.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know what I was gonna say.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's okay.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have a similar experience in prescribers wanting to treat anxiety over ADHD first?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or did you kind of get lucky in having really knowledgeable prescribers?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I fear of seeing providers, especially throughout my childhood and like early adulthood, I felt like I was fixated and kind of hyper-focused on my anxiety.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I would bring kind of my thoughts and feelings to providers about my anxiety, they too would kind of hyperfocus around my anxiety when all along there was this additional thing that was present that was not really being considered or seen or was kind of put on the back burner.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: That definitely felt fitting.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime I went to see a provider around my anxiety, it somehow always tied back to my weight, my eating patterns, my drinking patterns, a kind of what I was doing in my extracurricular times and activities, how I was spending that time, what my sleep was like, which, like valid, all of those things absolutely contribute to anxiety.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: However, it really didn't matter how much I tried to manage my anxiety through any type of method.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: It did always feel like I was trying to play a game that I would never win.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was an ongoing battle in my adult life with this new provider that I have been seeing.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: She, again, is a big believer in treating the ADHD and that inevitably kind of helping to manage any other co-occurring disorders that are present.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: That can be so discouraging for people.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people can probably resonate with that experience.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that unfortunately, maybe there aren't enough knowledgeable providers, or maybe because sorry, ew, gross.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I swear I'm not dying of the plague.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe because there aren't a lot of people willing to prescribe stimulants because it's a controlled substance.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a medication shortage, maybe it's a combination of all of these things simultaneously.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it seems like there is a major need in the field, and it is just currently lacking for anyone who is not a child who's struggling to sit still in their seat in a classroom.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: The stimulants, the medication, it is kind of an intimidating topic.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the first time my provider gave me the options of these stimulants.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea what they would do to me or how they would interact with my body.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I remember him giving me a couple different options of ones that the typical person with ADHD might benefit from.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I chose one, kind of started to experiment with the stimulants.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: My God, to be 22 years old and be exposed to stimulants without any real knowledge of what they were going to do to me, on top of having generalized anxiety for the last 20 years of my life was such an interesting situation.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I can't say it was always the most positive situation.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Not only did the stimulants interact with my anxiety in a really weird way, but I don't remember there ever being any type of assessment around my addictive personality or substance use issues at the time.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I had just gotten out of college.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was partaking in drinking alcohol all the time.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was smoking marijuana.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so then to be offered this stimulant as a 22-year-old, yes, it was helping in some ways.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I do remember having the moment where the first time I took it and I was like, oh my God, is this what life is like for other people who don't have an ADHD brain?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: I just felt unstoppable.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody who's taken an Adderall for their first time has had the experience where suddenly your whole house is cleaned and you've gotten done 90 things on a to-do list that you didn't even know you had at the time.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is an overwhelming experience to be exposed to a stimulant, especially at an age where you're just desperate for some type of control in your body, in your brain.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: I can't say that that initial time of getting those stimulants and having those medication options was super successful for me.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have found a medication, I believe that's classified as a stimulant.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: I currently take Vivance.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is something that's way more manageable for me.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's just because I'm at a more grounded place in my life where I don't engage as in as much substance use and I have a little bit more of a healthier lifestyle from day to day than I did when I was 22.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe these things are contributing factors, but the medication in general, I feel like is such a we could probably have a whole freaking episode on just the medication for ADHD at some point because it is complex.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, given that we both managed medication in an inpatient setting as well, I think we saw so many different combinations, specifically for clients who had ADHD.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's wild to think there are other disorders that have many combinations of medications, but it feels like ADHD is up there in that you really have to try a lot of them sometimes before you find a fit that feels good, not knowing it's if one stimulant will work or if another one is going to react better, or if you need to go the non-stimulant route.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh kind of running the gauntlet of medication.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I will say though, I do have some gratitude for how ADHD awareness has increased over time.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking into kind of the timeline specifically on the DSM and ADHD.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And bear with me because it clearly has evolved, I guess is what I can say.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Initially, it was added to the DSM in 1968, but at the time it was called hyperkinetic reaction of childhood.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you were only looking at the hyperactive kids.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was the only thing they were concerned of fixing back then.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't transition to change either until 1980.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when it becomes attention deficit disorder.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: So ABD is what we hear more often.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: At that point in time, it was specified with or without hyperactivity.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where the foundation, I think, of what people think about now comes from.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then it moves on in 1987.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness we got more knowledge quickly.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's when it becomes attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of having the differences of ADD and ADHD, it's all just ADHD at that point in time.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I think I run into misinformation quite a bit, specifically with clients having confusion around the fact that those are not two different diagnoses, that ADHD doesn't have to be hyperactive, despite the name, which is incredibly confusing for clients.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: On the upside, in 1994, the standalone term ADD was finally retired.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which feels like a long time ago, but it clearly is still a term that's being used.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's pop psychology at this point in time or just misunderstanding in how things are talked about.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: But as of 2013, there are different subtypes or presentations.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And along with that, the threshold was also altered, as well as the raised age limit from seven to twelve years old, which is an interesting thought.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know about you, but I've definitely seen kids under 12 being diagnosed with ADHD regularly.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, all the time.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like it is so common, especially, I mean, over the years I've worked in different clinical settings, but now that I work in community mental health, specifically working in crisis programs, I come into families' lives at a time where families are experiencing their hardest moments in their families with their children.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: More often than not, I see either a child who is lacking provider engagement, is on zero meds, has zero support at school, no 504 plan, no IEPs, no mental health therapist, just kind of almost flying under the radar.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: type thing.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then on the exact opposite spectrum, a lot of the time I see clients that come in and they have a laundry list of medications, some of them stimulants, some of them are antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: They have a huge list of medications.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: They do have lots of supports in their home life or school life.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And yet they are still being seen in our crisis program.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's still not working in some way to help them stabilize or manage their ADHD or whatever their presenting symptoms are.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Therapists and providers and prescribers specifically are faced with a unique challenge with kids that are younger in wanting to support clients who are clearly experiencing these common symptoms.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality that kids who are younger sometimes naturally display what looks like symptoms of ADHD, but really can be more so brain development and trying to piece out what is what, with the knowledge that obviously you can't like scalpel a child's head open, scoop into their brain and really check out what's going on.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's such an imperfect science in that way.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there are tests to kind of look at how the brain lights up over time, but most people can't afford to get those tests up.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee you they are not covered by insurance.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the just the whole process my adult life I really also got to kind of experience the challenges in finding providers, identifying consistent providers that you feel like you can connect with will hear you on the issues or stressors that you're bringing to them and then work with you ongoing consistently around your medication management or your treatment, whatever that looks like because more often than not it is a struggle to kind of nail down a provider where you're not waiting months and months for an appointment and you know that provider is remaining consistent with you.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: It all seems kind of challenging and it never really flows the way you want it to.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's this additional piece of if your child is young and you're noticing these things, then you're kind of fighting this fight of getting them into a provider that will listen to you and will look at kind of where they're at developmentally and take that into consideration before just going straight to experimenting with all the medications we could.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely think there's a lapse of insurance coverage that makes it a harder process for everyone involved prescribers additionally as well.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I also I know we got into it a little bit but I wanted to look at some of the statistics associated with ADHD because as I was doing some research thank you Wikipedia a lot of the things maybe I had some knowledge about but I realized we're kind of challenged regularly by society or by people who do have that diagnosis or their families.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to cover it because this isn't something that I think is talked about enough.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So yes boys are twice as likely to get diagnosed as girls are.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think the statistic that I found particularly fascinating had to do genetics in family history.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: So ADHD is oftentimes genetic with an 80% chance at inheriting it from a parent or a previous family member in your lineage.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but I think sometimes I see parents who are really frustrated and they're like, I don't know where they got it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: But oftentimes it's because they have undiagnosed ADHD that is presenting differently than their child and they don't understand it as a spectrum that sometimes hyperactivity in adulthood can get praised because you're the overworker, you have all the energy you're the super mom and you don't ever see what the inattentive side looks like for people.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so really not understanding the entire spectrum I think is a disservice to parents.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a good point because it can be kind of glorified in adulthood where the adults with ADHD they are taking on 20 projects at a time and they're stretched so many different places and they're able to get all these things done.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: However the ADHD child is almost the exact opposite those are the kids that are blowing out of classrooms or having big emotional outbursts in settings that maybe their parents aren't always at and so hard to manage and those are typically the kids that I feel like get, I don't know, what is the opposite of praise the most shame kind of delivered to them in some way definitely.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: I also think a component that's not really considered by families is that a lot of adults are building in coping skills to cope with their world organically and not really realizing how they're structuring their life.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, as an entrepreneur who manages their own business where you get extreme flexibility to do whatever you want whenever you want be creative not answering anyone of course you're thriving.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Of course you don't see how it's difficult for a child who is sitting in a classroom having to listen to the teacher having to respect all these rules having to be quiet and focused the entire day those are two vastly different expectations and you're not being set up for success in the same way which I'm sure is why people are like well it's clearly not me without realizing that they really have shaped their lives to benefit their strengths, which I I don't want to talk shit on because that's a good thing.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I do want to say it's not comparable to your child sitting in a classroom just because your situation is vastly different than theirs doesn't downgrade the fact that I probably got this from you and that's not a bad thing.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe that they need a little bit of compassion because I wonder sometimes if it's triggering for parents to know that they potentially gave them something that they struggled with.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that guilt is keeping them from supporting their child in some ways.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely it could be a lot to hold especially when not that I am a parent but like putting myself in the shoes of a parent and watching my child struggle in a way that maybe I can or can't recognize but in some understanding I know that I also have my own struggle.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: So inevitably being able to recognize that I could be passing on some of my internal struggles to my children I feel like could be such an overwhelming situation to accept.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely we can all have a lot of compassion for that.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: I did want to say because I think we saw a larger population that kind of had this next thing in play and it is talking about birth and factors essentially premature birth low birth weight and how that can develop into ADHD over time as well as exposure to substances such as nicotine, alcohol or lead, which was interesting to me.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I immediately had so many questions when I read that because I think oftentimes people will look at for example children and systems like the foster care system and be like they're just all being diagnosed left and right without looking at the fact that a lot of them have this in common specifically yes what happens during pregnancy does drastically affect how your body develops over time.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes that is so discounted I think there is a criticism of others on the outside who maybe don't have this understanding that they are assuming that people are overprescribing and maybe some are I can't speak to each individual community.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think it's interesting when you zoom out and look at the big picture maybe they don't just have this one thing in common maybe they have a lot of things in common.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's some relation there.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely I do have less knowledge around the effects that could take place and how it leads to ADHD or can trigger ADHD into developing as an infant when you're in utero.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: However I will say that myself and my two sisters I believe that we all have ADHD in some form I think mine would be kind of the highest level of ADHD or would be the most impacting on a day-to-day basis.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: I do know that one if not both of my parents also I can tell have it knowing I was the smallest baby of the three of us and I feel most impacted by it but in some way we've all been impacted by it because I do believe that both my parents have it.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: It is a spectrum there are different ways that it shows up.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that my ADHD and how it impacts me and shows up on a day-to-day basis it looks similar to maybe how my mom's ADHD shows up but then looks very different to how my dad's ADHD shows up.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: So even though we're all kind of managing the same thing it looks very different amongst all five of us.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: I always think that's fascinating.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just so eternally grateful that there is more conversation going on around this it's not perfect.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: TikTok psychology is not great.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people that are delivering misinformation.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know I don't have to tell other providers this but if somebody is not listing their credentials they're probably not qualified to be talking about these kinds of things aside from their personal experience.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: But to be giving mental health consultations to other people without a credential is dangerous in so many ways.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there are ways to talk about these things without necessarily marketing yourself as an expert.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish maybe more people were doing that.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Also I love the previous generation that of course that our parents come from of well I didn't have ADHD and nobody in my class was diagnosed.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you're like no they most certainly were there was just different cultural shift going on.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Kids were afraid of their parents the fear of not wanting to get in trouble sometimes altered the way that they would behave at school.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many factors that can change a presenting issue for people that I think oftentimes things can go missed.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't change the reality of yes it happens and it's not something that people should be embarrassed about.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like you mentioned earlier there's so many positive attributes of having ADHD and I just wanted to touch on some of those and some of the things that maybe you feel have been a personal strength or have helped you professionally that you've maybe seen other people who don't have ADHD struggle with.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish that more people would highlight not the limitations but the positive aspects as well that there are careers and life paths that are set up to align and have been created potentially by people who experience symptoms of ADHD just because you have this diagnosis and that school is difficult doesn't mean that work will be difficult or that you won't be able to find something that you succeed in later in life.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about finding what your fixation or your thing is.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Mine was mental health it was working with kids.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Before I came into working with kids in the mental health field I think I constantly felt like I had a lack of direction or I was a little lost in what I wanted to do.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I found this thing that really got me going, really made me you know focus and sit down.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: And now I feel like I thrive in this setting where there's not many other settings I feel that way.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that every experience is different.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to personally hear from our listeners and their journey of being a provider and also having ADHD and email us at clinically chaotic podcast at gmail.com.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually I know that I'm collecting all of these and I have been for a second eventually we'll read them all off.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do a mini episode we'll have conversations over all of these things.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: But in the meantime can I take you on a hard left yeah I would love to hear what's your good thing of the week my good thing of the week this week so over the weekend we did pumpkin painting which I feel like growing up as a kid we never painted pumpkins we always just carved pumpkins and got the seats out that was super fun very like tradition in my family.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: We had gotten some pumpkins over the weekend brought them home and I have a plethora of art supplies in my car that I typically used for sessions.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I have different styles of paint and stencils and cute markers all this fun stuff litter and so we decorated pumpkins this weekend which was super fun and festive.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like now that the pumpkins are painted maybe next weekend the task could be getting all the seeds out or carving them in some way.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing we carved pumpkins too growing up and I remember hating it it never turned out exactly the way I wanted it to it was so messy.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like pumpkin seeds which is an unpopular opinion it's so hard versus I feel like when you paint pumpkins it maybe looks more the way you want it to more often than not I don't think people ever talk about pumpkin carving as a sport but it truly should be it is way less of a sensory nightmare to just paint rather than take your hand in and get all the guts out.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Truly for everyone involved I think my good thing of the week is similar to yours.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: We hosted a Halloween party which is my favorite kind of party every year and every single person that was there came fully dressed up which for me is so much fun.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like very rarely in adulthood do people go all out for things like that and just have fun.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: There were a couple of people who talked in accents all night it was hysterical and it's just so fun to see these goofy sides of your friends.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we brought together everyone from every corner of every friend group of course aside from you guys but that's because you were sick and trying to thrive but it was it was cool to see the whole melting pot of everyone and to see other people I think because people came and everybody was like equally aligned in dressing up there was an immediate camaraderie amongst people that didn't really know each other which was fun to watch I love that.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah people left with some new best friends and one of our very close friends she made dirt cups do you know what that is yeah it's like chocolate pudding and Oreos and gummy worms right it's my favorite Halloween snack and I know that's really bizarre and it's super simple but something about it like transports me back to I had a really cool elementary school teacher and she would make them every year.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had her for first and second grade and she was just like the warmest kindest lady.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember her passing them out and all of us watching the Mary Kate and Ashley Halloween movie.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the best.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: So every time I have one I just think fondly of her and how she really made that kind of magical for me growing up.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Mary Kate and Ashley movies are magical so yes yes oh this generation will never know.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they have something that's reminiscent of that but never the same but I think we just have to say it is what it is.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is what it is until next week.